PUBLIC FORUM.

Dropout Karl

Karl Rove is like the student who burns down the fraternity house, the gymnasium and the administration building, then wants to quit college.

-- Stan Gordon

Encino

China libre

First pets around the nation began dying from tainted pet food, with ingredients made in China. Then there was the contaminated toothpaste, again from China. Now we have millions of Chinese-made toys being recalled because of lead-based paint.

Can somebody please tell me why we're still mad at Cuba?

-- Mark Shipley

Thousand Oaks 

Faux fix

Re "Proposal for under-mountain Metrolink station raises questions" (Aug. 13):

In a time where we need to make mass transit as accessible as possible, this station for the Las Lomas faux transit-orientated project promises to deter potential riders.

Honestly, who would even be able to breathe in this station? Are they not aware that Metrolink trains spew diesel exhaust, a known carcinogen that would choke potential users?

Don't forget this is an old tunnel (1875) that runs through an area sensitive to earthquakes. I can't even imagine how loud the station would be, with all those trains tooting their horns through those cavernous tunnels without modern exhaust and safety systems. Instead of enticing new transit ridership, it will be a major turnoff just because of the bad passenger experience this would cause.

-- Bart Reed

Executive Director

The Transit Coalition

San Fernando 

A sport? Bull

Re "Ring masters" (Aug. 12):

Why so much attention to such a horrible practice? Bullfighting is not even an American sport, yet we are subjected to the horrible pictures of a poor, pathetic creature being sacrificed for the sheer entertainment of sadistic people. No matter what your culture deems as entertainment, remember not everybody gets such sport from such inhumane behavior as a bullfight.

Should we look forward to stories and pictures of cockfighting and pit- bull fighting pictures coming soon because some people view these activities as sport?

-- Mary Lou Thomason

Newhall

God's creatures

Re "Ring masters" (Aug. 12):

I was saddened and appalled to read the story about bullfighting. I would think in the 21st century that mankind would realize how cruel this is. Yes, there is culture involved, but wouldn't it be more beneficial to do something positive with the bull instead of slaughtering it for its tail and ears? (Maybe the bull can do the same to the bullfighter?)

No animal should be mistreated like this for a person's amusement. Remember, these are God's creatures, and they should be treated with respect.

-- Nancy Hole

Sherman Oaks

Not for us to decide

Re "Ring masters" (Aug. 12):

Wow! I dropped Sunday's paper in the driveway never expecting to see an outlawed sport disgracing the front page. Why place an illegitimate kind of long-ago, Roman gladiating for all to see? Since bullfighting isn't legal in the U.S., the question of its legitimacy is up to Mexico and Spain, not the Daily News.

By the way, these killings draw only about 20 percent of the audiences they attracted 50 years ago when I attended my first bullfight in Madrid. Perhaps the idea of killing has gone more to the streets than the bullring.

-- Paul Vaughn

Van Nuys

Switching sides?

Re "City Pandering Department" (Our Opinion, Aug. 12):

Unless I am mistaken, I thought the Daily News enthusiastically endorsed the idea of grass-roots democracy and its recent incarnation, local community input, as an important consideration in deciding what is best for a community.

So how come your editorial ridicules the City Council for listening to the voice of an "organized local community" which seeks to derail the conversion of a shuttered Kmart into a Home Depot? Isn't that the sort of grass-roots democracy you have favored in the past? Have you switched sides?

-- Alan Pollack, M.D.

Woodland Hills

Self-serving pols

Re "All fall down" (Viewpoint, Aug 12):

We already pay billions of dollars in fuel and gasoline sales taxes, which are intended for transportation infrastructure! The real trouble is that the Sacramento politicians divert these taxes to the general fund. The self-serving Sacramento politicians misuse these tax revenues to pay for their pet, vote-buying projects and illegal aliens, not for the infrastructure!

-- Mort Arditti

Los Angeles

Irresponsible policy

Ever really wanted something, and just wished it were so? That's how our state Legislature is proposing to solve our health care crisis in California. Even though health insurance is too expensive for many small businesses and their employees to purchase, the Legislature's solution is to tell employers to do it anyway. Instead of trying to make insurance more affordable by reducing costs, Assembly Bill 8 (Nunez/Perata) simply requires all businesses that can't afford to purchase health insurance today to start doing so or pay the state a 7.5 percent health care tax.

Worse, the bill gives an unelected board of bureaucrats the right to raise this tax whenever necessary. AB 8 does not solve our health care problem, does not share responsibility and is neither legal nor responsible public policy.

-- Theodore Bradpiece

Shadow Hills

Condo traffic

Re "Home Depot dealt defeat" (Aug. 16):

If the residents of Sunland-Tujunga are so concerned over the amount of extra traffic that a proposed Home Depot would attract, why have they kept silent the last few years as dozens of homes have been torn down and replaced by hundreds of condominiums?

Do condo owners not drive?

-- Steve Thompson

La Crescenta